Gov. Mikie Sherrill is noncommittal on an offer from billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban to help New Jersey rein in the soaring cost of its troubled public employee health benefits program.
Cuban, the co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs and former owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, volunteered Saturday to serve on the committee Sherrill created to examine the State Health Benefits Program and School Employees’ Health Benefits Program.
“I’ll volunteer to be on the committee that cuts your health benefits cost,” Cuban said on social media. “You need someone from the outside that is objective, and can stand up to the big healthcare conglomerates.”
His offer gives Sherrill an unexpected potential recruit for an effort that could become one of the most consequential — and politically difficult — fiscal challenges of her first year as governor.
But Sherrill’s office stopped short of saying whether the governor would take Cuban up on his offer.
“We’re pleased that under Gov. Sherrill’s leadership, there is growing momentum to finally undertake the reforms needed to fix the State Health Benefits Plan,” Sherrill spokesman Sean Higgins told the New Jersey Globe.
State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Little Silver), a member of Sherrill’s Health Benefits Analysis Committee and a longtime critic of the state’s handling of public employee health costs, said the governor should accept Cuban’s offer immediately.
“If we don’t take Mark Cuban up on his offer, we’re not really serious,” O’Scanlon said.
Sherrill created the committee in September as part of an effort to overhaul a system battered by rapidly escalating premiums and costs for state and local governments, school districts and public employees.
Cuban discussed his own prescription for reducing health care costs while testifying before Texas lawmakers in an extended social media post this weekend.
Among his proposals were allowing patients to purchase prescription drugs for less than their insurance price and count the purchase toward deductibles; standardized contracts for pharmacy benefit managers and third-party administrators; public disclosure of pricing, fees, rebates and other financial terms in government health contracts; eliminating contractual gag clauses; and tougher penalties for health care companies that repeatedly violate state or federal rules.
Cuban said complex PBM contracts allow vendors to conceal favorable provisions and hidden costs from employers, calling the practice “contractual terrorism.” He offered Texas officials a PBM model contract he developed at no charge.
“If taxpayers are paying the bill, taxpayers should know the price,” Cuban said.
Cuban, an independent who identifies as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also sharply criticized the insurance industry Saturday for using outside organizations to review disputed coverage denials, arguing that financial relationships between reviewers and major insurers create potential conflicts of interest.
“The biggest customers of the companies that are the final decision makers for insurance carrier denials are the biggest insurance companies,” Cuban said.